The transfer window is closed (for a few months) and Arsenal tried to sign a player on deadline day and were unable to get a deal across the line. Arsenal’s target was apparently Douglas Luiz from Aston Villa. Arsenal made at least three bids for him but at the end declined to raise the price to where Villa thought we should pay.
There are obviously a ton of competing thoughts on this and you’ll no doubt have one you want to share in the comments. For me the biggest issue is that we’ve needed a suitable backup for our starting CDM for a year. I like Mohammed Elneny personally and he can be an adequate backup in certain games. But when our starting CDM was out last year, the entire season fell apart. And our #5 has got a track record of being out for weeks at a time: in his first two seasons at Arsenal he played 17 full90 equivalents and 22.5 full90 equivalents. At best that’s 59% of the available games.
In theory I also like Albert Sambi Lokonga. I think he’s a wonderfully talented young player and hopefully he’ll make a good deputy but his more natural spot is not at CDM. So he’d be learning that on the job and as we know from vast experience in this regard, that’s a huge ask for even the very best players.
Folks will say “yes, but the injury to Elneny and Partey were unforseen and brought all of this to a head” and my answer has been the same all summer: Partey is injury prone and watching our charge for 4th place disintegrate like the corpse of a horse under 55lbs of explosives was all the evidence anyone needed to agree that better depth at CDM was needed.
The thing about this is that it can also sound like crying over spilt milk. Arsenal have spent and spent huge this summer, getting in two key players to help us make a real charge for top four (Jesus and Zinchenko) while stocking the larder with a few other components who should help shoulder the burden of the upcoming batshit insane schedule of football*.
I recognize that we have spent well this summer. And I also don’t know if we should have spent an additional more that what we offered on Douglas Luiz. Villa wanted £40m, we were max going to offer £25m. This is for a player who is out of contract next summer. It’s an absurd ask from Villa. They clearly didn’t want to let him go.
Again, there are competing arguments here: spend the money and guarantee Champions League and it pays for itself; but also if you have to spend 40m on a middling player like Luiz you’re signalling to every team in the world that they can hold you ransom – look at what’s happened at Man U where they just paid $100m for Antony and $80m for Casemiro.
I think Arsenal were right not to plop down £40m on Douglas Luiz and I hope that Villa are relegated this season after firing their mediocre manager. I’m happy we didn’t spend stupid money on Douglas Luiz. But I’m also unhappy that the club didn’t prioritize a CDM earlier in the year. There were a lot of us who wanted Arsenal to buy a CDM much earlier in the season (for a number of reasons which include #5’s injury record and potential alleged off field problems) and the club never even remotely looked interested. The club and manager felt that #5 and Elneny (with Sambi as backup) were enough. And I guess we’ll find out if they were right.
I have a bad feeling that they were wrong.
*Arsenal play two a week until September 19th, then there’s an international break which means most of the team will be headed out for those four matches, then they return to play two a week up to the World Cup. We’ve already written about the impact that the World Cup will have on clubs like Arsenal. And right after that we go straight into the Boxing Day three games in a week schedule followed by FA Cup, League Cup, and (hopefully) Europa League knockout games.
What about Zinchenko? Could he be back-up for #5’s position?
He can, sort of yes. I think he’s a bit small and not great defensively.
One more problem is that Zinchenko is also injury prone and has never played more than 19 full90s for any team in his career.
I totally understand everyone’s concern/panic, however, I think we’ll be less reliant on the CDM role being so pivotal this season as we have better centre backs, more accomplished forward line and a much more settled and farmiliarised squad in general. I think Lokonga showed very promising signs of maturity on Wednesday, I also think people overlook how lucky we are to have Vieira and ESR as midfield cover if required albeit they’re not defensive either of them but their technical level could be very useful when dealing with the high press in midfield.
I also think the fact we are so much more attack focussed this season makes TP’s role not as urgent.
Having said all this, I wish we had signed Neves earlier in the window, I honestly think that could have put us on a title push.
I am content. The squad is improved from last season. I prefer to suffer if it means getting the right player instead of stand ins that end up clogging the squad and wages. That’s assuming that was the case. If the season goes tits up, then I will be sad then, but not any time before then. Hope the toxicity of the transfer window comes to a close too.
If you’re buying on or close to deadline day, you’re going to get quoted prices significantly beyond the actual value of the player. There’s nothing in Aston Villa’s mission statement that says it must help Arsenal in any and all ways possible. You come late to the table, you pay.
Yes, but he’s out of contract in 9 months, you’ll say… but a club has to replace a good player with no time left to do so. They then have to make a decision… football or finance. Their results are bad. They have to make the cost of his leaving — on deadline day at that — a steep one. And it’s not like Edu hasn’t paid inflated transfer fees for players. Ask Brighton.
Player or players covering Partey or Tierney or directly competing with them are going to see a lot of action. Injury history. ArtEdu ought to have known that.
Bit bummed that Liverpool got Artur. If i recall correctly, we explored getting him in January. As subsequent events proved, we should have. Arteta has his faves… he’s ruthless with some players, and indulgent with others. Elneny, a good guy and a good servant of the club, should have been let go. Buy big, and bring through one of Azeez, Patino or M’hand as third choice.
Hey, Im only an ex-journo. Im not a football manager or TD, and dont know the game as well. But Stevie Wonder could see that we’d be where we are now with Partey, and that, moreover, injury isnt the only threat to his presence in our midfield.
I’d rate our overall transfer business as successful. Jesus was a huge get for his quality, and Zinchenko a great buy. I like the look of Fabio, even if I havent seen him play competitively. If the World Cup means we player fewer games to the next TW (where we can correct the Luiz omission), then Im happy for the interruption.
Must tip the hat to Bellerin, a great servant of the club. For a while, he moved like a runaway locomotive down our right. His weakness was actual defending, and in this respect, Tomi and White are huge upgrades. But we loved Hector, his personality, his social conscience, and his willingness to speak out. Good guy, wish him well.
I have a feeling that Barca — having got him for free from us — are going to flip him fort money. Auberise him 😊
BTW, Edu has canceled the contracts of 7 players, meaning that we got Zero$ for them. It tells me that he’s bad at contract management. Any fool can write off a company’s assets. It’s not MBA case study stuff. He’s got to get better upgrading contracts or offloading players earlier. To me, he gets a rather easy ride in the press.
p.s. we’ve still got Reiss, havent we?
p.p.s. learned from the club that Ainsley — now on loan at Southampton — has been with us since he was 6 years old. Wow. Speaking of AMN, his best game for us was in central midfield against Watford, all of 10 months ago. He won MOTM in that game, but was on a plane to Rome 2 months later. Life comes at you fast. Not even suggesting that we keep him as cover in central midfield (we shouldnt), but this thing actually happened very recently. Good luck, Ains.
Bellerin’s main problem was that he blew out his ACL playing for us. He essentially played every minute of every Arsenal match from 2015 to January 2019. After the surgery he never returned the same.
His supposed weakness in defense was, I think, over-exaggerated. He left gaps because he was told to go forward, like a lot of modern FBs. He would have been incredible in this current system if he’d recovered from his injury.
Another aspect of the decision only to bid up to £25m for Luiz and no further is said to be the FFP ceiling which we are sailing close to and which a higher fee is said to have breached. Nonetheless as you observe, spending £40m on a back-up midfielder who hasn’t even been first choice this season would have been ludicrous. I do agree, however, that better back-up/ succession planning for Partey should have been a priority due to his susceptibility to injury.
In extremis, Zinchenko (once fit) may be a stop-gap for deep central midfield. Meanwhile Sambi has more than earned his shot at proving to be the solution after his superb show on Wednesday. Arthur is not the solution. He may have seemed the ‘golden future’ when signed but his performances for Barca were a major disappointment and he also failed to inspire in Italy. We did look at him and Believe were offered him but decided not to bite.
I think Arteta likes working with a small squad. We made no indication of signing a midfielder before the (double?) injury. I don’t mind, but I really don’t like how the youth are never counted as a part of the squad. Maybe we’ll see Matt Smith get a chance in the Europa now, but really it’s strange how reluctant Arteta is to give young players meaningful minutes, most exemplified by the Saliba situation.
I also find the insistence, despite the bid, that getting the perfect player is responsible and the way to go, kind of strange. It sort of made sense when Wenger did it without having major funds available and made use of whatever he had at his disposal, and still made the CL bank. It makes no sense to me now when we spend a lot of money and the manager deigns to not make use of all his options.
If I assess this cynically, I’d conclude that leaving themselves short is a conscious decision. If it works out they are geniuses, if it doesn’t it means the timelines need to be extended. At the very least, as an organisation, I’d consider what behaviour is/has been rewarded and have to see if this is a factor in the decision making.
Edu rides the wave of public opinion between reflected glory and a total wipeout into the abyss. He’s not doing a great job but I feel like he carries the can for Arteta a lot of the time. It can’t be easy to make plans when the manager makes it clear he thinks the player isn’t good enough and completely freezes them out, and/or flip flops on their position in the squad.
Anyway, I’m not fussed about the transfer window, now or in January. they can do what they like. I just don’t want any more painting failure as success come the end of the season. We’ve started well. Another 60 points in 33 games (1.8ppg) and we will in all likelihood make the CL. It’s on them to deliver now. Not ‘process’, not ‘next level’. this has to be the season, though I fear them not showing urgency here suggests they don’t necessarily view it that way.
to put it a little more succinctly, I’m not sure Arsenal are focused on winning.
they seem more caught up in what they think will lead to them winning. Even if it means making it harder for themselves to win.
that is not new, nor confined to this transfer window.
Just FYI: they are already briefing that the reason they didn’t pay more for Luiz is that the REAL REAL target is someone in January.
I was a little surprised we didn’t pursue another CDM a little earlier, given the existing injury history and rumored legal issue. But maybe Arteta and Edu thought we had enough coverage between Sambi, Elneny with Zin and White in emergencies. Bad luck that all of Partey, Zin and Elneny are injured at the same time, as you don’t want to spend a lot of money on a player that might not even be the second choice option.
I’m less concerned about Saka backup. Feels like we have a number of players that can do that, we just need Arteta to get them some match time.
For me, we’re certainly finally at a blank slate for sales. We’ve gotten rid of most of the highly paid deadwood (or they are on loan). Edu doesn’t get a pass going forward. But the reality is that with the PL operating in such a higher financial market, it is going to be a challenge going forward.
I’m concerned and I’m not. If you reckon Partey plays 50pc of games and Elneny is both decent cover and rarely injured, then it’s a smart move to sign him up and defer a signing until you have more money to spend.
I don’t think anyone anticipated Elneny being out for months. His injury record is decent. You can anticipate him being out here and there, and Lokonga covering. So I get it. Although I would have wanted a new no 5 anyway because of that other stuff.
The problem with asking too many players to be versatile is that doesn’t help with injuries, it really doesn’t. It helps with rotation and short term niggles. Ben White is versatile, but if he’s good enough to start then playing him elsewhere immediately weakens the team. If you need to play Zinchenko in CM, you don’t have him as a LB.
And as we know, injuries are never predictable. So you have a first choice DM, a backup DM, and a player who covers 6 and 8. You have a first choice 8, and 3 or 4 players who can also play there. But suddenly we lose both specialist DMs, you need to play your versatile cover there for a while (Sambi), and now he can’t rotate at 8 to provide your starter (Xhaka) a rest. So then, in Europa and cup games, Sambi is still playing and you have to play someone like ESR as 8 instead of where he would have played, and thus Marti doesn’t get a break (or Marti does and Xhaka doesn’t).
I realize this sounds like a ramble, I haven’t explained myself clearly. The point is, relying too much on versatility isn’t always great. Ideally you have 2 reliable players for each position, and other players who can be 3rd choice in multiple. But salaries and such often make that prohibitive.
I think Sambi will generally be okay, but it means some players (maybe him) will get very tired as they will be rotated less. My main concern is still Xhaka.
I’m sort of glad in a way we didn’t get Luiz. He seems fairly average. Maybe he’d be the new Elneny, but maybe not. Certainly he wasnt out first choice. Perhaps we can now focus on getting that first choice (Danilo?) in Jan. Or even Luiz, but at a lower price. We’re certainly not going to lose top 4 in the first half of the season.
“I don’t think anyone anticipated Elneny being out for months”
Injuries happen… unannounced, and often in bunches. The point isnt the elneny injury… it’s depth and quality of the injury for one of your main pieces; and one who has been fit to play barely half of our matches. And moreover, one with legal threat hanging over him.
The memory of Mikel trying to shove a plainly injured Partey back onto the field as he walked off in the middle of a Tottenham counter attack (from which they scored) is recent and disturbing. As is the memory of Partey landing in London in early afternoon after a long flight from Cameroon, and starting a game 3 or 4 hours later. We treat Partey as indispensable, and then get impecunious with his cover.
It’s not good enough.
“And as we know, injuries are never predictable.”
Actually… previous injury history is a very good predictor of future injuries. In other words: we can expect quite a few injuries from Partey and Zinchenko. If they don’t have injuries, we will consider ourselves lucky. Arteta said something weird today about Partey’s injuries:
“We have tried to manage him. A lot has happened since he joined and we are trying to find the best possible way to find the reason why that happens, but unfortunately, the body and mind are two different groups so sometimes to understand that you can’t put your finger on a single thing to try to prevent something happening. The attitude of the player is there and he’s really disappointed to be out again as you can imagine, and the team needs him when he’s back.”
Sounds like they seem to be at a loss to understand why TP is out.
To add, Luiz, is more than Elneny-on-the-Copacabana.
He is a superb line breaking passer, much more progressive with the ball on carries and passes, is physically more robust, and can hit a dead ball. Elneny is OK, and at times he plays really well. The guy who gets games in a talented Brazil midfield is a significantly better player than Elneny. Is he better than Danilo? I dont know. We also dont know that Danilo is first choice. Im thinking (this is a guess) that it was easier to buy from Brazil than it is from the EPL that late in the market. Undisputedly cheaper.
Plus, we made 3 bids for the guy yesterday. Three.
Few gooners would have begrudged Arsenal going 15m over the odds — on deadline day — for a prem-ready player we need NOW.
In spirit, Im with you though. This is what we have. Look how well missing out on Vlahovic worked out.
I just want to caution you on the idea we “missed out on Vlahovic”. Yellow card!
Vlahovic was never coming to Arsenal. I think Arsenal did ask him if he would be interested and that he and his agent used that interest to ensure he got a great deal at Juventus but Juventus were always his target.
Luiz and Tielemans both out of contract and therefore available on a Bosman in 1 year! I see them both as good depth pieces.
Are Arsenal…. IN CRISIS? Lol, sorry couldn’t resist. Saw someone on Twitter say only Arsenal could be top of the league and in crisis at the same time. Maybe it’s true.
The decision makers had to balance two evils: over pay for a mediocre player to address a short term need and limit your ability to spend later, or roll the dice and hope that Partey’s injury is not long term and that there are enough solutions in the squad to get us through until January at least. We supporters always want all the signings. It makes us feel good in the moment. But then two, three years from now when we are still looking at Douglas Luiz on our bench and wondering how he got there, it won’t be so nice. What would be his role in the squad when everyone is fit? The El-Neny replacement? Is that really where you want to spend $30 million when you’re awake and sober on a player who probably is what he is at this point in his career? I doubt it.
In terms of whether poor planning led to this, no, I don’t think so. The team shelled out big bucks to get TP in and in so doing signalled that he was going to be the first choice DM for years to come. Any team who loses that player will suffer: imagine Liverpool without Fabinho or City without Rodri. Not the same. The club also made provisions for his injury by signing up El-Neny long term, who fits the profile of a career backup perfectly (and has an excellent fitness record) and by signing Sambi Lokonga as a potential long term solution. I really can’t find too much fault with that.
You cannot and should not plan for doomsday scenarios like simultaneous long term injuries to two players in the same position, nor should you over react to squad shortfalls by panic buying. We were not about to win the league because we brought in a reserve winger and a reserve holding midfielder. Maybe those two players MIGHT have helped us win a few more points this season? It’s hard for me to get too excited about the WAR involved there, plus this means more opportunities for guys like Viera, Marquinhos and Nelson who can fill in for Saka, and for Sambi to grow into the player we think he can be.
+1
Elneny in 2-3 years??
I’m pretty sure his deal runs out next year and I’ll be pretty unhappy if we renew him.
I agree that the team made a mistake in paying TP what they did with his injury record, he was always going to need backup. I think it’s time we seriously look for his long-term replacement and make him the backup.
Doc, the ££ saved by not buying Luiz or anyone else isnt going to help us kick any balls the next few games. The need is now.
It’s funny, this “pay for bench player” argument. That’s what some gooners were saying in arguing that we should cash in on Saliba because we already had Ben White at RCB. How did that turn out? A year ago, we’d have been arguing that anyone we’re signing in Tierney’s position is cover.
Fabinho and Rodri arent the examples I’d have cited, because neither has Partey’s record of frequent absence through injury. That’s the knock, no pun intended. Not injury, which every team and player has to deal with… the frequency. Who didnt expect that Thomas would be absent injured again soon? Nobody.
You say that the club shouldn’t “over pay for a mediocre player to address a short term need”, but that the players for which we chose not to overpay will be available to us on Bosmans. One, the description of “mediocre” does not apply to the player that we chose not to pull the trigger on yesterday. Two, if he’s mediocre, we should pass on him even if he’s free. I think you needed to pick an argument there. Those two ideas can’t marry.
Look, you and Zed are right about it not being doom and gloom. We have what we have till Jan, let’s back the boys and let’s roll.
But it’s still mildly frustrating. Looks like we havent learned from past mistakes, least of all around the fragile lynchpin in our team. We’re not in crisis, but it looks like we are facing an avoidable problem.
what would you recommend as a solution, brother? mind you, elneny played less than a week ago and looked fine. with 4 days remaining in the transfer window, what would you have done if you were edu? personally, i was content with partey, mo, and albert. this is just bad luck, not a failure to prepare. i’m not the biggest artedu fan but i’m okay with the effort.
likewise, there are rumors that if arsenal paid more than what they offered for douglas luiz, they would have violated the ffp rules. i don’t know how true that is but i can imagine they were desperate to get the deal done. he’s a good player; don’t know why he didn’t start for villa the other day and why they were so desperate to keep a guy who’s not going to sign an extension when someone offers you that amount of money for him.
maybe we could have struck a loan deal for callum chambers.
I’d have paid the last minute premium. When you read “break glass in emergency”, you effing break the glass.
Elneny’s injury is significant, and his absence will be long. Talk of it potentially being season ending, but not from the club. The club itself is tight lipped. That may have been to not weaken its negotiating position, but that doesnt bode well for me.
A serious long-term injury to the backup to an always injured player (who is himself currently injured) constitutes an emergency for me. You need to get to work, but the car won’t start. The Tesla you you ordered for arrival in January isnt going to get you to work next week.
I won’t go as far as saying failure to prepare, but who is unaware of the injury history of our lynchpin player?
I wouldn’t pay a premium for Luiz but I would pay a premium to get in a starter who would push TP for his starting spot. And I would have made it a priority, which is what I’ve said pretty much all summer. That’s where the money needs to be spent.
But maybe Zinchenko can do it? I dunno. I do like him a lot.
“I would have made it a priority, which is what I’ve said pretty much all summer”.
This is the point I forgot to make to Doc and Josh. Folks like yourself have been sounding the klaxon on high quality cover for Partey for months now. Not yesterday. His absence through injury not long into the campaign was totally predictable.
I would buy the player to replace Thomas Partey. He’s 29, history of injury, and given his track record I think he’s probably best used as a back up. He’d be a great backup as well.
Buying his replacement now would also be an insurance policy against any other possible problems.
From the Villa side of it I think they have to be seriously concerned about relegation. It was too late in the window for them to find a replacement. Not great management from them but if they’re comfy in mid table come January they will probably accept a lowish bid. But by then I’m pretty sure we will be content just to wait it out.
I hear you Claude, really I do. I’m reminded of the mid-late Wenger years, where we were always an injury or two away from doing something special.
I think, given 5 wins on the trot, I’m feeling a little more sanguine than I otherwise would.
My understanding of the situation (based purely on snippets) is that Danilo is seen as the LT successor to Partey, but probably isn’t ready. When Elneny broke we wanted to bring him in but his club was under no pressure to sell and it was basically, no way. So then Luiz was an option.
We (not you and I, I mean the fanbase in general) acts as if we don’t have counterfactuals for these situations, when we have a very good one: we missed out on the champions league by a foreskin. We went for Vlahovic, didn’t get him, chose not to compromise. People say it worked out because Jesus is awesome, and he certainly is, but what’s to say Vlah wouldn’t have also been awesome. But nevermind, he was impossible.
What if we blew 70m on Isak, then? Would he have gotten us the 2 points needed to finish in the CL? He looks decent so far. So, maybe?
But if we did, we’d have a 70m hole in our budget. So, no Jesus and no Zinchenko (and no $ for a DM, which we didn’t end up spending anyway). But CL, at least. Would that have been better? Bigger gaps in our squad, would we have fared as well? Would that have been preferable? Maybe?
On the other hand, additional CL revenue would probably have meant we could afford Zinchenko, actually. So Isak for Jesus, plus being in the CL. Worth it?
All counterfactuals, all moot, but somewhat informative to our situation now. Luiz now for 25m? Or suffer through until Jan, have that 25m to pick up (maybe) Luiz AND Tielemans in Jan? Or maybe someone else – Danilo? How many points will be dropped between now and the end of Jan as a result? (I say end of Jan because it’s more likely to happen at the end than at the start, and in Jan we play Newcastle, Tottenham, Man Utd, and probably cup games).
There’s no right answer, and I swing between extremes. I guess we’ll find out.
I agree with much of this. We made a smart call on Isak (that said, he scored on debut), and I’d say — and I’m sure you’d agree — that as much as I’m in awe of the beast mode that Vlah brings a classic 9, I’m thrilled that we got Jesus. We came out of that search good. I’m satisfied.
We got MOST right this past TW. I said already that it was a successful TW. We did some great business. However, I think that if your lynchpin midfielder is only fit for a shade over half of your games, it is a significant problem. You could argue that part of the stumble at the run in could be attributed to his unavailability. So why didnt we make that position bombproof?
I agree with Tim (who said this months ago)… that is a key position, and we needed competition level cover for Partey. Why? That guy will get games. You could have bet the farm on him getting injured sooner rather than later.
But to repeat, we can generally be happy with what was mostly a good TW.
But here’s the thing — Luiz is a damn fine player (thanks Josh), and we don’t know that Danilo is the preferred target. I have no idea why folks consider Luiz to be a last minute stopgap. He’s a player we’ve been looking at for a while.
I consider him a last minute stopgap because we didn’t bud for him until both our DMs were looking at potentially lengthy injuries! Yes he’s been on the list for a while but if we absolutely had to have him this summer why wouldn’t we have approached it like the others and gotten things rolling months ago? We see him as a stopgap because that’s exactly how the club saw him.
If Isak or anyone else gets you to the CL it is worth it. Because that is your goal. (they even stated it as the target in FEBRUARY)
And look, we offered Lacazette a one year extension, which he turned down. We offered Nketiah a huge pay rise after that. If you get Isak for 70m and you get CL, you let Eddie go and you go buy Jesus as well. (Ideally you’d take a call on Eddie much earlier though)
You are right, there are counterfactuals. And it can be a never ending circle of them. Every decision can be justified/argued against. But that is why the team’s target is important. What is it all about? Did that decision help us get closer to the target? If you are in no hurry or need to make top 4 (and higher) you can keep on making such moves and they can always be justified. On the other hand, weakening ourselves in January and not getting a striker contributed to us missing out on the CL – the stated target, despite the initial reluctance and the subsequent rewrite.
Tim is right, if we are going to spend tens of millions on a defensive midfielder then he should be better than what we have in the squad now. Douglas Luiz isn’t better than Partey, I don’t think there’s an argument to be had there. If both are fit, Partey is going to play. So let’s say we buy Luiz this summer and let Mo walk next summer. You’re basically in the same situation squad wise except you got a little younger. You still have to find and buy Thomas’ replacement which will be very expensive, but now you have 30 million less to offer. The game is chess, not checkers. The goal is to eventually be the best in the PL, not to be 2% better this season. Saving now will mean a better chance for a truly transformative signing next year. What do I mean by transformative?
Ramsdale Over Leno: suddenly you can use the GK in buildups more, you can be more solid against corners and you can boot the bal as long as you want. Technical advantage, tactical flexibility, set piece security. Worth 35 million? Definitely.
Ben White over Holding: suddenly you can be more press resistant, less vulnerable to pace, so you can push your line higher and therefore make your press more effective by squeezing the space the opposition has to work with. Technical security, improved 1 v1 defending, tactical flexibility.
Jesus over Lacazette (or Auba): suddenly you have a dynamic threat who can beat his man off the dribble, get shots off quickly, opens up passing angles and drags players out of position, also upgrades your press. Shot creation, finishing, dribbling, off ball tactical advantage, so many things that are so worth it.
Zinchenko over Tierney: exchanged a touch line hugging physical beast for a technically ridiculous buildup artist who keeps the ball for you which heaps pressure on the opposition, makes chances from deep and makes you even more press resistant. Super valuable.
I could go on but you get the point. To apply it to the present situation: What is Douglas Luiz going to add that we don’t already have in the squad, and what is that worth? He keeps the ball well, he can turn away from pressure, he can progress the ball and he can strike a ball well too. He’s not a great defender and not physically dominant. So basically he’s a younger version of Mo who is a better set piece taker and is more mobile. That’s a marginal upgrade. His chief value would have been his availability but serious clubs don’t pay 30 million for that.
What we need instead from player X is to be a Thomas Partey, that is, a technically and physically superior player, but also be younger and available more. So, erm, Declan Rice? Don’t laugh… if we keep playing like this he would want to be a part of what we are building.
“What is Douglas Luiz going to add that we don’t already have in the squad?”
Doc, we did full-court press on Villa for Luiz on TDD. Mikel and Edu’s frenzy provide a rather robust answer.
We’d all be talking about what a great acquisition he is, if our last day purchase push had succeeded. You’d be too.
All this talk of how buying players restricts your growth ought to be consistent. We have had a hell of a squad churn at much cost, written off plenty of talent, had flip flops on a few we signed and our timelines have been slowed by it all if anything. Like honestly, the only way it feels sensible to me is if you accelerate your timelines for payoff. Not delay them. Which is what a striker in January or Luiz now likely would have done.
But that’s tangential to where I am now. All I’m saying is they need to be held responsible for what they deliver in terms of performances and results. I’m content to let them make whatever transfer decisions they choose. It’s the gaslighting I can’t stand.
they are choosing not to add any more players now, like they did in January, and before that when they chose to sideline players we could’ve used. All of it has been written off as pursuant to some grand plan. Even last season’s failure. No more, please.
I suppose I should clarify what I mean by mediocre. Some take that as an insult. I mean it quite literally. He’s above average for Villa but average or below for us. Average is not bad! You want average PL caliber players because it’s still very valuable as a backup or an alternate compared to, say, an academy player. Every big club has a few of these types, but you don’t want too many. I should also clarify that Luiz has some above average traits from what I’m hearing but the consensus seems to be that he is not a starter level talent for a club with our ambitions and present standards. I feel the same way about Neto. It would be nice to have him but not for tens of millions. On a Bosman is exactly how we should be picking up these kinds of players if at all possible. Liverpool did essentially that with Arthur Melo and City found a bargain for that CB they landed. Arsenal would and should do deals like that but it wasn’t on this time for what they needed.
Do you think DL would move the needle for us significantly against MU this weekend? His first game for the club, used to playing under Gerard, no familiarity with Arteta’s complex system, no relationship with his team mates, faster pace, much higher technical level, pressure cooker game. It would be a big ask. At least Sambi and Xhaka know each other and have one game under their belts as a partnership.
Thanks for the clarification, Doc. “Mediocre” is pretty firmly established as an insult, brother 🙂
For a player we chased pretty hard yesterday and for whom we made 3 bids, some are now saying “we didnt really need him anyway”. Or, “we’re better off waiting until we get him for free”.
Er, no. We chased him hard, because we need him now.
We chased him hard, but someone — board or TD — decided either the C/BA didnt work, or we’d exceeded our budget, or didnt offload enough players, or whatever. Let’s not go foxes and grapes on this. We may have left it too late, chasing the player on the last day of the window. From Villa’s POV, they had to prioritise the football at that stage. Some financial risk, but a club under these circumstances always believes that it has time to pull a PSG/Mbappe style re-sign.
Furthermore, we should look at this as competition, not backup. You make your case for playing and selection, and may the best man win. We have 2 capable CBs for RCB. The best man turned out to be the “new” arrival. Before we saw Zinch, we were talking about a backup for KT. The best man turned out to be Zinch. Two months before a world cup, he’s not coming (as he wanted to) without being fairly certain that he’d get game time.
Leaving aside ESR’s recent absence through injury, our top scorer last season cant get into our starting XI if everyone is fit.
p.s. some doubt over Ramsdale and Ode for Sunday, but that may just be caution.
neto was on offer for about £2 million but he did move on a free.
contrarily, melo was expensive; nearly £5 million loan fee with a £37 million option to buy. arsenal paid £5 million for elneny straight up. i like melo but he reminds me of jorginho’s little brother; he’s not much bigger than torreira. likewise, he likes too much time on the ball. as for overall effectiveness, i rate elneny over melo.
as for douglas luiz, i’m not sure he’d be ready for united this weekend but i was a big admirer of him after watching the olympics last summer; he can play.
Negligence, Europa league ambition!
Most on here KNEW Saliba was ready last year, would he have gotten us 4th, you bet your a$$ he would have.
Everyone knows that AFC have a horrible injury record for key players at key times. Partey is injury prone, most on here were asking for a cm/dm and forward all last year, could have picked up Bruno for a reasonable price or a Vlah type of player, would it have made a difference, you bet….
So, Edu and company go into this long summer transfer window, knowing these facts and factors, yet they wait until Elneny is injured to make a push late for Luiz.
F me, the amount of excuses is beyond comprehension, if AFC wobble into the January window, and do not make a Champions League manuever, well then, we ALL know that our club is not one, and will never win CL in our lifetimes. Arteta willl have to over coach just to keep his job. Most likely that will not happen due to our injury record, and until these last five games, Mikel has not truly shown he can do it over the course of 38 EPL games.
Here’s Hector, a good human and a thoughtful guy, in a long interview with football commentator Jake Humphrey, and Damian Hughes. It’s long, but a really good listen. Just leave playing and go about doing what you’re doing. He left his mark at Arsenal.
The best technical RB Arsenal have ever had, period. A great person too. Thank you for your service to Arsenal, Bellers.
That goal is on Zinchenko, he should never have left his man open at the far stick. Arsenal the better team but again gave away a goal against the run of play. Let’s see how we can respond. They are good in possession but open defensively, especially in the second half.
VAR should not be able to look at common fouls and it should not be overturning decisions that are not clear and obvious errors. Borderline call to allow Arsenal to play on, but the goal should have stood.
I cant begin to tell you how bad Zinchenko’s decision-making was on that goal. What’s he doing abandoning the left flank to double team Rashford, when Saliba already had him covered? And what is his fellow leftie Martinelli doing jogging up THE MIDDLE of the pitch?
Salt in the wound. The ref made a decision mid pitch, and VAR had no business getting involved.
All I can say is that was a classic Arsene Wenger vs. SAF match. Arsenal the better footballing team but United killed us in transitions (plus insert joke about referees from Manchester refereeing a Manchester United match in Manchester).
Eriksen was their VIP. Without that guy, this finishes 1-2 nil to Arsenal. My main source of worry is that our defensive balance in midfield has been upset by the recent injuries and subsequent formation change. We are going to struggle in that area until TP returns, particularly against the top teams. On the ball though? Wow. Just need to finish better.
And no, Douglas Luiz does not change anything about this game IMO. We dealt with their press just fine.
Neither does Antony for them. I don’t see a $100 million player or the next Ronaldo. He’ll never get an easier chance. Rashford on the other hand was and will be a handful. Great player.
This comment brought a smile to my sour face.
Doc, I admire your stout defence of ArtEdu on nearly everything, but it’s perfectly OK to admit that someone we support can get some things wrong.
Failing to fix a known and key issue — the injury history of your midfield lynchpin — is on them. Luiz or no Luiz. We have no idea how a player who isnt ours would have done, do we? But the issue isnt THAT player.
Plus, we lost the game for other reasons besides Partey’s absence.
I don’t know how much of an injury history he had before we signed him from Atletico, do you? It sounds like your argument is we should’ve signed someone other than TP in the first place if I’m not misunderstanding.
I’m not too discouraged except it seems to be the same old story every single time at OT no matter if we are the better team or not. But! I’d rather play well than lose rather than play poorly and win at the point in the evolution of our squad. We need to tighten some things up in midfield and this is a trial by fire for Lokonga. That’s fine in a season where we’re unlikely to win the league.
If I’m Ten Haag, am I happy? Yes and no. For him this is like when Arteta came in to Arsenal in 2019 and played on the counter, beat a lot of big teams with sucker punches on the way to winning the cup. But that wasn’t the football either of them want to play. They want to win but they also want to dominate the ball and dominate the territory and the chances, and MU didn’t do that on their own turf. They are reliant on a 32 year old man playing with an implantable cardiac defibrillator, who I can therefore never hate, for creative inspiration. They won today but they are not the better team and that will tell at the end of the season. If I’m Mikel Arteta, I’m nothing but complimentary to my players today.
Played well, given the situation.
vaR is $h*te.
Highline with no pressure will most likely lead to scores like this.
Say it again with me, will you?
Until we win at ole toilet, we ain’t winning league, EVER!
Doc, we do not need to go back to Thomas’ time at Atletico. We’re talking about his record with us. He’s a super player, dont get me wrong. One of the best in the league in his position. But he breaks down often. He has been fit for a shade over half of our games.
I agree with you on everything else. We shouldnt over-react to this result; in the same way that we shouldnt over-react to our 5-0 start. That’s wonderful, mind you. But there are 32 makes left in the EPL season.
When we’ve been beaten by big teams of late, it’s from swift counters of our high line. Goals 2 and 3 for them. Goal 1 was headless chicken positional play from Zinch, and doziness from the trailing player, Martinelli. Both were infield.
Hard to criticise Martinelli after that super hit for the disallowed goal. Does the guy have a weaker foot? He’s deadly with both (screamer saved by Emi Martinez hit with his right; scorcher scored on de Gea hit with his left). But he was jogging back, infield, as Antony ghosted in from the right, unmarked. Zinch lost his head, but Martinelli didnt cover him.
Also, Mikel panic subbed with 20 minutes left and 2-1 down, and unhinged the structure of the whole team. Goal 3 was a communications shambles. There was nearly a 4th as Xhaka mistimed a clearance on the RIGHT SIDE touchline, and Ramsdale cleared from the swift counter.
Credit where due. Rashford was marvelous. The quick dump off to Antony when crowded by Saliba and Zinch was even better than his goals, I thought. Eriksen was not far behind, but VAR bailed him out with a really soft decision for the disallowed goal.
Ode put it best: “it’s never a foul. It’s a soft challenge & for VAR to come in, it needs to be clear & obvious. For me, it’s very, very soft.”
VAR has no business re-litigating midfield 50/50s that the ref deemed to be fair.
But hey, they were clinical in punishing our wayward positional and tactical play.
I don’t think the subs were that bad…I have little issue with Arteta going for it. Zinchenko and Gabriel didn’t really cover themselves in glory for a two of the goals.
We’ve got to be more clinical in big away matches like that.
As for VAR, it’s f$%ked. That certainly wasn’t a terrible call, in many cases that would have been called on Ode, and we would have been angry in the opposite situation. But VAR has been terribly inconsistent. Awful calls in two matches yesterday, and not sure how you can call the one today back and not call back the interference with Ramsdale earlier in the week or the hair pull two weeks ago. No point in having it with this many dubious and inconsistent calls.